Hand Odds

Hand odds are the probability of drawing to the winning hand on the flop, turn or river. It’s typically calculated on the turn when you don’t currently expect to have the best hand but want to determine if calling a bet is profitable or not and whether you can expect to extract additional value on the river.

If you want to calculate your hand odds you have to know how many outs your hand has. Outs are defined as a card in the deck, which will help you to make your hand. In most situations when you do not know what your opponents hold, you can only do calculations with the knowledge that is available to you. And all that is available to you are your pocket cards and the cards on the table. It means that you are doing the calculations as if you were the only person at the table.

Another important thing is not to over count your odds when calculating outs. If you know how to correctly count the number of outs you have in your hand, you can easily calculate what percent of the time you will hit your hand by the river.

EXAMPLE “Calculating hand odds and pot odds becomes second nature after a while.”